Merchant Shipping (Pollution) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I rise briefly to give my support to this important measure. In doing so, I am conscious of the fact that sitting to my right is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, who has great experience in such matters. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, who is to follow me has many years of experience of dealing with MARPOL Conventions. For that reason, I will keep my remarks fairly short. I certainly welcome the first part of the Bill, which has measures to speed up compensation and to provide more compensation for major oil spills. Something has been said by previous speakers about the horrendous effects of large pollution incidents, but we should bear it in mind that the amount of pollution from ships is still far smaller than the amount of natural pollution that comes from seepage into the sea. It is not the enormous problem that some people believe it to be. Nevertheless, when such incidents occur, they are extremely worrying. It is also import however that the general public should be reminded that we rely for everything we use in this country on sea travel in some form or another—about 93 per cent of all the goods that we receive, use and eat comes by sea. Sea travel is very important to this country—it would be, naturally, it being an island. I hope that, this year, the events connected with the bicentenary of the death of Nelson and the Sea Britain campaign will help to educate the public on the importance of sea transport. Horrendous though those major pollution incidents are, they have to, I believe, be accepted, if people are to be able to go to the petrol pumps and fill up their gas-guzzling cars whenever they want to or go to the supermarket and buy a huge range of goods from the shelves. The Bill is part of a slow process of measures to alleviate the problem; to cut down on pollution incidents; and to see that, when they occur, the pollution is pegged speedily. I take great comfort from the fact that the chief executive of BP Shipping, speaking in Oslo at a conference last week, said that his company would rack up its measures to improve safety as regards possible accidents and environmental pollution. BP already has a very good name in the business, and the fact that it wants to go even further is encouraging. The second part of the Bill deals with the ratification of Annex VI of the MARPOL Convention. As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, it has been in preparation for some time, and ship owners have had a lot of time to look at the problem. If I remember rightly, it come into force last month, on 19 May. Sulphur emissions from ships are growing, as has been said. Global trade is growing, and we are faced with more and more ever-larger container ships, some of them capable of carrying more than 9,000 containers—and there are even larger ones in the pipeline. Those ships are driven by engines approaching 100,000 horse power that pump out an awful lot of emissions. Ships account for 4   per cent of global sulphur emissions and 7 per cent—slightly more—of nitrogen emissions. This measure is part of a small step to start reducing the sulphur and nitrogen content in marine fuel. I know that the whole business of moving the maritime world forward, with regard to these conventions, is a worry to many people—including Friends of the Earth. But I fear that we must move slowly, and I deprecate the unilateral action that some states sometimes take to move things forward faster. We must all try to move at the same pace. I mentioned the shipping companies, which have been looking at the situation for some time. In fact, only last year, P&O fitted a device to one of their ferries running across the English Channel between Dover and Calais—something called an eco-silencer, which is designed to cut sulphur emissions by 95 per cent and nitrogen oxides by 80 per cent. BP is also looking at something similar, and other shipping companies are looking at other measures. There is also the question of reduced sulphur content in   fuel. I know that the shipping community is not necessarily agreed on that yet, but there are several different ways in which to approach the problem. The maritime community is not unaware of its responsibilities. Incidentally, the technique used for eco-silencers is called ““scrubbing”” in general terms, which alludes to the fact that sea water is brought into contact with the emissions to transfer the sulphur oxides from the gas into water, thereby resulting in sulphate, which is a natural component of sea water. That is further filtered to remove particulates. Looking ahead from that, in part of my work outside the House, I have worked for the past 15 years with the Port of Los Angeles. Over there, they are quite far advanced in the business of trying to cut down pollution, which is a major problem. Last year, almost a year ago to the day, they unveiled the first electrified container tunnel. Ships enter it when they come into port, shut down their main engines and generators and plug into shore power. They say that, where the west coast of America leads, the rest of the world follows. I am sure that that is the case—and I am sure that, as the years go by, we shall see more and more use of shore power in ports. Certainly, the shipping companies are aware of that and are working towards it. The process in that case is known by the rather strange name of ““cold ironing””. That is something that we must watch in future; I believe that it will come in more and more. I have one word of caution on the conventions. I draw a parallel with the question of parking in London; over-zealous petty officials, in order to make money out of it, sometimes upset a lot of people. There is a slight danger that that tendency might creep into the maritime business as well. We have already seen some incidents in the past couple of years in which the French have been slightly over-zealous in seeking out pollution from ships. This is an ongoing business, and of necessity a slow one. We should all like to speed it up, but nevertheless we are making a useful start. I am sure that more developments will come in and will be taken note of. I wish the Bill a speedy passage.